Just a Little Wrinkle
by snowflake07
Summary: An angsty AU drabble. A what if Orihime had realized her true potential, what if she made a different choice in the ceiling of Hueco Mundo? What would she give to save them both?


A/N: This has been sitting on my computer for a long time so I'm going to use it to get back in the groove of things. Bear with me. Format for this story is going to be angsty with some lemons splashed in here and there...and probably a string of long connected drabbles because I can't weave together a solid plot yet. Oh and this chapter kinda ends abruptly it would've been way too long otherwise and I'm still cleaning up part two. So I'm done with all my excuses-again pardon me. Enjoy.

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**Just Little Wrinkle**

She really was a magnificent creature. Misery and fallacy and untaintable purity were so perfectly intermingled within her…She was a constant enigma…so frail yet simultaneously indestructible.

Orihime had no idea what possessed her to return to Hueco Mundo. Ever since the Winter War ended and Aizen imprisoned she'd felt lost. Watching Ichigo lose his powers had been painful to watch and the feeling of guilt had only increased, as she watched him say goodbye to Rukia and the others after the war. He wouldn't have suffered if she'd never gone. So many wouldn't have died at her expense and for what? Nothing. It hadn't mattered, none of it. She'd just been a distraction, something to entertain Aizen while he bided time. To think that all those lives were so trivial to him—it was nauseating.

She'd lost her sense of self. What connected her to the world now? Of course the answer was her friends, but she felt that there had to be more than that. For everyone else their own personal lives were so much richer and fuller than hers. She felt like a shadow of a person. In Hueco Mundo, it had been different, being there made her realize her potential as a human being, as a person. She longed for that feeling. So she'd gone back.

The bracelet, she'd never returned it and no one had ever asked for it back. She'd never told anyone that she even had it. It had been an accident really. She'd been walking home one night after a trip to the grocery store, her pantry in serious need of restocking. She'd been attacked by a hollow, so she called on her , Tsubaki, and the others had surprisingly done well. She hadn't noticed that bracelet around her wrist had begun to glow. It radiated a kind of energy and seemed to be leeching spiritual pressure from the hollow for every blow she dealt it. Before she could decide what to do with it (she never actually killed a hollow before, she'd never actually succeeded in holding her own against one; there was always Kurosaki-kun to bail her out) the hollow dissolved into spirit particles that swirled around before concentrating over the emerald gem in the bracelet and then absorbing into it. Baffled and unsure of what to do, she went home.

She'd cooked dinner, ate, and showered for bed. It was there where she contemplated the hollow again. The thought made her uncomfortable that she'd essentially brought a hollow home. Was it dead? Would it reappear? Would it happen again? She'd thought of removing the bracelet, but again how would she dispose of it in such a way that the hollow would be taken care of as well? It pulsed with a warm kind of energy and she'd had it so long that she was loath to part with it. She settled in under the covers unable to come up with a definite answer.

That night Orihime dreamed. It was a strange dream, more like a memory or a premonition. She was in Hueco Mundo but it was different. She looked around trying to figure out how she'd arrived. Over her shoulder, a little way off in the distance was a gargantua. In it she could see reflected her room, the bed with rumpled sheets, her dresser, and bunny slippers forgotten on the floor. The great halls that were once her prison had been reduced to rubble. She walked by them idly, her footsteps echoing off the broken walls. But in the barrenness of it all she couldn't deny that she felt presence within the structure. It was decrepit but not abandoned. Around her little creatures scurried; their red eyes glared at her through skull masks. It took her a moment to realize they were running and not from her. She saw the blood before she felt the pain. A wide gash appeared on her side. Blood was spilling everywhere, staining the sand and marble at her feet.

It was all wrong. This wasn't how it happened on the ceiling. Ichigo had never hurt her; he didn't look like he did now. Ichigo's hair was auburn like hers not black. The tattoos were right but his face…There was no mask she could see his face, but it was deathly pale. And those eyes, she'd know those eyes anywhere, even with the gold irises and black sclera. The way they pierced into her, the way they sneered, the hunger in them. She'd know him anywhere. Her Ichigo. This creature before her seemed more like a hollow, like one of the Espada than her Ichigo.

This was wrong; this was all wrong. She needed to wake up. Kurosaki-kun didn't do this. This was not how it happened. She fell to her knees waiting for the final blow. The blow never came. But she felt the storm of spiritual pressure that whipped sand against her like hundreds of tiny blades. She could honestly say she had a better understanding of Heineko's power.

The dust settled and a black pointed tail appeared in her view. The black bled into skin much too pale. A tattered wing and atrophied limbs came into view. It was too much; her brain had short circuited. All the pieces would not coalesce. There was so much wrong with this.

"Woman, you seem forever prone to calamity. Have you learned nothing?"

"Ul-Ulquiorra…"

The thing that was Ichigo and yet not him, shrieked, refusing to be ignored. Up until now he'd been held back, caught in a power struggle between zanpakatos.

"What-what's happening? That-who…" Apparently complete sentences were beyond her capability.

"This wretched individual before you is not Ichigo Kurosaki, but some broken fragment of his soul. A piece left behind. It seems the war against Lord Aizen has taken more casualties than just myself."

"Is this-is this real?" She was dreaming, she had to be dreaming. This was so _wrong. _

"I have told you before, nothing exists that I cannot see. You see what is before you, do you not?" Orihime nodded. "Then it is real," he replied. The stalemate broke and both were thrown back. Red cero came together with black. The smell seared flesh burned her nostrils.

"Stop, please stop! Both of you, you don't have to do this. You don't have to die for me." This was all so pointless.

"Don't be so arrogant to think that this is all for you." Ulquiorra's tone was scornful and almost angry. She had to make them stop.

"Santen Kesshun!" It worked but it wouldn't hold them for long. She wasn't a fool, one of them alone she'd barely be able to contain. The two together would be almost impossible. Such was their spiritual pressure. The only thing that was probably keeping them now was the severity of their injuries. She needed to think; there had to be some way to stop this.

"Do you wish it? Do you truly wish to stop them?" A voice echoed in the air around them. "The answer is very simple, to stop them one must die."

"No! That's not what I want."

"Well you can't have both. One must die. It was the black one last time, do you prefer it to be the other then?"

"NO! Please, I don't want anyone to die."

"Then what would you have me do?" A little girl appeared in front of her.

"Who-who are you?" asked Orihime.

"Orihime, you know who I am. I am the very thing which your powers rage against, which you manipulate and bend under the false pretense that you are its master. I am Time."

"Time? What do you want with me?"

"Stop that, stupidity doesn't suit you. You summoned me here because you will not let this go. You want to save them both; you want to rewrite a period of time that should not be changed. It is beyond your capabilities and I will not allow you to continue blindly rewriting the thread of fate. If you truly want to save them then you can but at a price. So sweet Orihime, what will you trade me for the lives of these two? "

It didn't surprise her that Time took the form of a child. Initially, she was reminded of Hyori, so much anger in such a small vessel. "Do you understand what you have acquiesced to? Once this is decided it cannot be undone. You will be bound for eternity, for each life you pass through from this life to the next. Do you comprehend the gravity of this accord?"

Time had a scary voice. It was unnerving to hear words so big said by one so small. She paused for a moment. All life changing decision requires a moment of pause, to reflect. Orihime's eyes strayed from the cherub-like face to the doll cradled in the girl's arms.

A gasp tore from her throat and she recoiled in horror. Not a doll, but a corpse; a petrified infant corpse. Suddenly the child before her seemed much older, more sinister.

"You do not have to do this. I am not afraid to die. I have failed in my purpose, in my service to Lord Aizen," said Ulquiorra from his golden prison. A twinge of irritation flashed through her, and it was that which strengthened her resolved. She would show him the power and value of a life, even a human one. She would teach him the rarity and preciousness of second chances, of wonder at the world. She would teach to him live without analyzing, would teach him that on some occasions, there was no need.

She ignored him, and fixed her gaze on the girl, fastidiously refusing to look below her neck. "I do. I understand."

"You would choose him over that one over there?" A tiny hand gestured over to where Ichigo lay bound. "He has no soul, agreeing to this will not gain it back. Once lost it cannot be recalled or remade. This being before you is not the human who died long ago."

"You're wrong." It was probably foolish to correct Time or even to point out any blunder, but she couldn't help herself. "I never met Ulquiorra, the 'human' as you say. I only know him as he is now. He has a soul, he's just lost his heart. That is what defines a hollow, their very fundamental nature; how they come to be. "

"And you think because of this the heart can salvaged?" Time gestured to Ulquiorra. "How many has he killed to become the individual before you now? Do you think it so easy to amend his disdain for all living things?" In the course of her rebuttal the infant in Time's arms had begun to squirm and fuss, making pitiful cries that seemed to echo around them. The angrier Time became, the more the child fussed.

"I think…I think any individual can change. That the heart no matter how ravaged can heal, and while it may not be as it was when it was first borne to the world, it is resilient. Things that are lost can be found, things forgotten can be remembered or taught anew. I never said that this would be easy but it is what is right," replied Orihime.

"And what of Ichigo Kurosaki? What if I told you he loved you? I could show a glimpse of the course of your life with him. Do you wish to see it?" Even as she uttered the words images flooded Orihime's mind: their first born son, dinners with the Kurosaki family, Isshin crying as he hugged her, thanking her for restoring the matriarch to their family, Ichigo's eyes as he made love to her, one image after another.

"Please, stop. No more." She could barely form the words, for the ball of tears lodged in her throat. "My decision remains unchanged. I choose to walk by his side."

"Such a strange girl. For the love you claim to have for Ichigo Kurosaki, you seem very willing to give it up. And for a hollow no less, a being incapable of love."

"Ichigo…Ichigo will…" Orihime had no answer. There was nothing she could say. Ichigo didn't love her now, and even if he did, it was clear that he was unsure, torn. It was easy to see the devotion and affection he had for Rukia and plainer still to see the devotion he had to his family. If she were honest with herself, there was another reason that she doubted she and Ichigo would ever amount to anything. One probably truer than all the others. She looked too much like his mother. In Ichigo's mind his mother's death was his fault and his alone. And she could see in his eyes what he wouldn't say to her face. Her being here in Heuco Mundo, in the middle of a war was his fault too. By associating with him, he had put her in harm's way. There was guilt eating away at Ichigo from inside and to stay with him, to stay by his side would be selfish at the very least. It would only serve to propagate that guilt, to make it grow and fester and drive them further apart. To salvage any type of relationship she had with him, friendship or otherwise she would have to leave him.

"Very well then." The change in the air was palpable and the tiny infant ceased to fuss. "It will be as you wish. You have only to seal the pact with the one that you have chosen and the next reality will be the one that you have sought for here."


End file.
